GRAND

Evening Star, Issue 23684, 18 September 1940, Page 5

GRAND

‘ I Was a Spy ’ is the main attraction at the Grand. This groat British film, on its first issue, so thoroughly deserved the packed houses wnich greeted it that the present reissue during the present war is more than justified. The story tells the true emotional and factual history of the young Belgian w'oman, Martha M’Kenna, who was in the town of Roulers in 1915, after the Germans had occupied it. She is engaged by the medical authorities to serve in the hospital, but still she is a Belgian, and helps her auiit in furtive missions. Her immediate superior in the hospital is also in the service. She risks the fate of the thousands of solders whom she is among when they are caught unawares, and bombed by Allied planes. Then she and the doctor nurse those who are left wounded. Together they make a fruitless attempt to blow up a dump of poison gas cylinders when they first came into use by the Germans; then they nurse the Allied wounded after the first gas attack. ‘ Around the Town ’ is also on the programme. The picture is built round the story of a casting agent who helps an American theatre magnate in his search for British talent in London. Yic. Oliver is the agent,, and he is undoubtedly even better on the screen than on the radio and music hall stage. All the time he is wisecracking and clowning in a most entertaining fashion. There is a galaxy of talent supporting him too numerous to mention.